Turkey’s Kurds welcomed this year’s Nowruz in the heavily Kurdish area of Diyarbakir as health conditions deteriorated for some of the thousands of hunger strikers protesting Turkey's refusal to allow jailed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) leader Abdullah Ocalan to see his family and lawyer. (MEE/Nimet Kirac)

Leyla Guven, the previously jailed parliamentarian from the pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP), continues to protest the imprisonment conditions of Abdullah Ocalan, leader of the separatist militant Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), from her home. Her daughter Sabiha Temizkan told MEE her mother’s health is worsening, that she has severe cramps, is losing muscle. “But her morale and hopes are very high,” she said. (MEE/Nimet Kirac)

At the Nowruz festival, the provincial head of the Human Rights Association told Middle East Eye that rights groups cannot report on the status of the roughly 5,000 inmates on hunger strike. “Monitoring groups are unlawfully not allowed to watch the strikers inside jailhouses,” Abdullah Zeytun said. (MEE/Nimet Kirac)

“Mr Ocalan needs to be released as soon as possible, and we should be given the right to autonomy,” Sevcan Yildiz, 18, said at the Nowruz festival. Ocalan has not been allowed visits by his lawyers or relatives apart from one visit by his brother in January. The 70-year-old is serving a life sentence near Istanbul on Imrali Island since his capture in Kenya through a CIA-assisted operation in 1999. Turkey and the US have classified the PKK as a terrorist organisation. (MEE/Nimet Kirac)

Inside Nowruz Park in central Diyarbakir, children, elderly, men and women danced to folk music, tied by their pinkies to perform the regional halay on Thursday. People also raised flags promoting the pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP), a political party closely affiliated with the PKK. (MEE/Nimet Kirac)

HDP co-chair Pervin Buldan voiced support for the hunger strikers. From the stage, she called on Ankara to end the isolation of Ocalan. "Here is March 21st, here is Nowruz, here is Amed (Diyarbakır),” Buldan addressed the crowds. "Our voices reach out to Ankara, the palace. If you don't hear this voice, we tell you once again that this people won't give up on peace, democracy, freedom.” (MEE/Nimet Kirac)

Nowruz, the Persian New Year, is celebrated across the Middle East and the world, and in various Turkish provinces including Batman, Van, Sanliurfa, Izmir and Adana. The equinox will also be celebrated in Istanbul on 24 March in Bakirkoy Square. As local elections on 31 March near, Turkey’s Kurdish politicians insist the detention policy towards Ocalan should end. The Turkish government has yet to formally acknowledge the protests. (MEE/Nimet Kirac)